Sudipta's Life

Mr. Q is my room-mate. Initially, he was gleefully happy when I asked him if I could post something about him and his exploits. But then, he wondered aloud what would happen if his wife stumbles across my blog some day, and maybe this post in particular. I'd spare you the details, but suffice it to say that after some amount of coaxing (read promises of celebrity status), he has agreed to let me use Mr. Q instead of his full name. Every night, we get our net connection at 10:00 p.m. (because of our Iqara Night Angel plan). After that, after I check mails, blogs, university application status and forums, etc. for about half an hour, and then Mr. Q takes the hotseat. The other day, I was standing beside him while he was online, chatting. He picked an id that looked like one of a gal from a chat room, and then sent a PM. The conversation went like this: - Hi, 23/m/mumbai here... wanna chat? - (reply) Hi... I am from mumbai, but right now I am in Dubai - (Mr Q) I love Dubai ! Now, this...

[This, dear readers, is the last in a series of posts of my article. Bear with me, something up close and personal will be coming up soon] A big step towards creating communal harmony will be appealing to the people via the mass media --- the movies. We must take a lesson from the Hollywood movies, and learn how America is portrayed in them. The image of the unknown is crafted very carefully in there, and that is what we too need to try and achieve. Blatant altruism and partisan movies will not work… it will become more of a laughing matter. The message has to be subtle, depicting the power of unity, of integrity, and most importantly, depicting the fact that no religion asks us to kill. The message that needs to be put across is that God does not need you to protect His honour. Another problem that needs to be addressed is poverty. We have to feed the stomach first, before feeding the minds. To an ordinary Indian, everyday necessity is too hideous to allow him to think of anything e...

[continued from the previous post] There is yet another problem. Our fathers still wince at the thought of having to share their bottles of water with a co-passenger who might be from a different community. That, broadly, is the reason it were the big cities more than the rural areas that witnessed the most widespread riots in the recent past. The bigotry is entrenched. No amount of reasoning can change that. The solution lies not in changing for the better the minds of the older generation. It lies in bringing the younger generation up in another mould. For us, thirst dictates the buying of a bottle of water; we don’t stop to think what community the bottle-vendor is from. It is the young minds that can be moulded into the sublimity of secularism while retaining the impressions of their own respective religions. The old and hardened minds can be beaten to pieces; you cannot change them. Sometimes it is just plain ignorance, or sometimes it is just the low self-confidence we have on ...

This post is part of an essay I wrote for a newspaper competition. Unfortunately, this wasn't published :( So I decided to post it here. Since the real post is an essay, I will spare yo uthe torture and post this in 3-4 parts so that you may juse feel like reading through :) When I was a child, I had read a little story. It was of two friends, who went to attend a small get-together. They were the best of friends, and preferred each others company to the general hullabaloo of the party. After they settled themselves comfortably in a corner, they started playing cards, while listening to a radio broadcast. All was well until the radio news came on and announced that there had been an outbreak of ‘religious’ riots at some remote corner of the country. The two friends started an argument, abused, hit, and then finally stabbed each other, all within the span of a minute. When it all ended, the others in the room just saw two buddies dying in a pool of their own blood; two people who we...

Yes, dear readers, I got my AGRE scores today. Got a 740 out of 900 (I think), which is in the 54th percentile of the test-takers. In case you are confused with the figures, this is a mediocre score, neither a good one nor a bad one. Consequently, this neither boosts nor defiles my profile. Now, how do I feel? Imagine you jumped off a diving board into a swimming pool full off people. You are stuck upside down, can't get straight, can't go further down. The only thing you can thank God for is that your nose is still quite further away from the water. I feel exactly like that now... scores neither good enough to clinch something, still knawing at me for those 150$, and and they are not bad as well. Will send 6 more application packets within Monday, and then wait and watch. By the way, some more good news coming up from my side, including a post about a particular girl. That got you interested, didn' t it? :)

Imagine you are alone, at the top of a cliff. You have toiled hard to come here, and feel ineffably happy to be here. You feel that the effort was worth it. Stare around. Wonder at the open skies, the bright distant horizon disappearing in the clouds, and the slight chill in the breeze gliding across you. You feel almost like raising your hand and touching the heavens. But you are not there for the magic touch. You are present there because you want to dive. No, you are not suicidal. Instead, lets say that you want to talk to the winds. Now look down, and all you see below are clouds. White misty clouds forming a carpet of the most exquisite texture you have seen. The light and shades form a kaleidoscope of celestial colour, all glittering and shimmering in frozen morning delight of the sunshine. You take the plunge. Now you are sailing. Sailing as the wind sings past you. You watch enchanted as the mist blurs the difference between dreams and reality. The feeling of being engulfed in ...

My article gets published on Linux For You!! :) The article, in brief, is about games on Linux. As the editor sums it up, " • The Penguin at Play! While gaming isn’t exactly the forte of the Linux operating system, there are scores of great games available for the platform that are sure to keep you absorbed for hours. " Well, if you do read it, tell me how much inclined you felt to go check out a few games on Linux.

This post is actually meant to be read only after you have read this , on sunshine's blog. I suggest you do that first. Now this post is, I suppose, is what the 'teenaged' boy should be thinking all this while... and I am trying to give you a view from the other side of the fence, that is. "Ahh... there she comes. Yeah-yeah, she calls herself sunshine, but I guess jumping shadow would be a better name for her. Anytime, when you see her tantrums, her fights with classmates, or even you imagine how she walks, the first idea that comes to your mind is a female version of Fido-dido from 7'up. Bungling-bubbling-sweet-screaming-lanky shadow of a girl. And guess what, she used to be the source of my daily dose of laughter when I was alive. I used to wait in this corridoor... and stand like a statue, waiting for her to pass. Sometimes, I used to pass her at the gate, sometimes I followed her to the rooms... and had to try really hard to suppress my laughter while my eyes g...

Last night, I was going through the recommendation letters that I have got from my professors at the college. Actually, I was sorting them into different application packets for the 10 different places I am applying to. And then I remembered something. The first time I had gone there, I had got my recommendation letters in envelopes and had them sealed. Later, I came to know that you also needed a signature across the flap of the envelope to prove its authenticity. So I was off, last weekend, to my college, to get signatures across the flaps. Now, as you might understand, I reached my professors with 10 envelopes, each of them duly sealed, but bearing no other mark of identification or proof about the contents within. I had also bought extra envelopes so that I may get the letters out, put them in the new envelopes, seal them and have their signatures on them. To my amazement, they asked me not to open them, and just put their signatures on the envelopes. I was stumped... I mean, I cou...